Olivia Wang, Ubiwell Labs

Experience design major Olivia Wang recently completed a co-op with Ubiwell Labs. This co-op felt like a good fit for Wang, as she was interested in learning more about conducting design research. CAMD had a chance to ask her about her experience. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why did you choose this particular co-op?
I was interested in this project’s research involving mental health and machine learning. In addition, it gave me the opportunity to exercise my user research and design skills.
What is your role? What are your responsibilities?
I’m a user experience researcher and designer. I helped design a dashboard that was developed by our Computer Science co-op that collects Garmin tracker data and estimates users’ levels of depression. In addition, I’ve interviewed experts in the field of mental health sensing to receive feedback on my design, along with users themselves on their feedback.
What’s the most exciting part [of your co-op]?
I’ve strongly enjoyed interviewing different study participants and learning about how they react to our dashboard. In addition, I’ve loved growing in our lab’s community and have found it beneficial to learn from people who have distinguished roles in academia and who are so passionate about what they do.
How has this impacted your learning? Is it something you want to pursue further?
While academia is a field I’m not sure I’d be interested in pursuing currently, I definitely would love to do more work in user research or designing for social or community issues.
Will you be able to bring your experience back to the classroom/studies in any way?
Now that I’ve been able to learn the ropes of conducting an NIH-funded research study, I definitely will be able to apply this to any future studies I may participate in.
What’s something about the co-op which has been completely unexpected, but essential to the experience?
The most unexpected aspect of my co-op has been the people. I feel as if my brain has expanded that much more by working with such intelligent and thoughtful folk, along with learning how to work 1-1 with our cracked developer co-op. Special shoutout to Vedant, my supervisor and current PHI, for his mentorship in user research!
Thanks Olivia!